The Amnesiac

by Sam Taylor

  He put his eye to the opening and watched as the sun rose over Lough Street, as leaves and windows sparkled, as shadows grew blacker and shorter, disappeared and reappeared on the other side, grew longer and greyer again, as windows and leaves glowed yellow pink red and faded to blue, as the tiny world grew dark and was illuminated by moon and lamp, and as the first peek of sun extinguished them and the earth began another revolution. He watched as the moon shrank from sphere to sliver and grew fat and bright again; as the leaves on the tree uncurled and turned vivid green, dark green, patchy yellow, deep orange, blood red, as they fell one by one and gathered in dry heaps through which children kicked and played with conkers, as the rain came down and turned the leaves to mulch, liquid brown, and the branches of the tree held their pose, naked, and sagged slightly under the brief weight of snow; as the skies above the house broiled grey and low and the snow became hail became sleet became rain and the thin slick-blackened branches, so dead-looking, grew miracle buds which blossomed and were scattered and revealed green tips and it was spring, and he watched as the earth began another orbit of its sun. Years passed; he grew thin and old, and his memories of life before the cellar turned faint, watery, unreal, lighter than air . . . He lay in bed, his eyes open to the darkness and let the images float haphazardly through his mind, all of them weightless and meaningless and beautiful.

  It was at this point that I entered the cellar.

  James opened his eyes and crawled to the end of the bed. Looking through the periscope, he noticed that there was a black van parked next to his own white van. Suddenly he was impatient to escape the cellar. For some reason James felt sure he was in the wrong place.

  Carrying the black box in one hand and the black notebook in the other, he climbed the steps, opened the little door, crawled into the cupboard under the stairs, and from there walked to the kitchen. He put the kettle on and went into the garden, where he stood for a while, feeling the gentle sun on his face, breathing in the scents of nature, listening to the birds. Then the kettle started screaming and he went inside.

  He made a pot of coffee and a bacon sandwich and ate breakfast under the apple tree in a state of bliss. Or rather it would have been a state of bliss had James’s subconscious not kept interrupting it with unwelcome, unsettling memories of his dream. Feeling that he would not be able to stop thinking about the dream until he had written it down, James put his mug and plate in the sink, opened the black notebook, and wrote the following:

  I had a strange dream last night. In the dream I was lying in bed in the cellar, awake, when I heard a noise. I sat up and saw a man sitting calmly at the end of my bed, looking through the periscope.

  The odd thing was, even though the cellar was in darkness, I could see him perfectly clearly, as if he were sitting in broad daylight. That’s how I know it must have been a dream.

  I knew who the man was, although he looked different from all the other times I’d seen him. He wore a pale blue T-shirt and jeans, not his usual black coat, and his left arm was in a plastercast. His hair was slightly longer too. Even so, I felt sure it was him.

  I cleared my throat and he turned towards me. He smiled with his lips, but his eyes were curious, penetrating, as though he were looking at me for signs of something. His face seemed familiar and I said so.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘although in fact you have never seen this face before, and it’ll be quite a long time before you see it again.’ I was about to ask him how he could possibly know that when he continued: ‘I’ve seen your face, though. I remember it well.’

  I recognised the sound of his voice and yet at the same time it was utterly alien to me. Listening to it gave me an unpleasant feeling.

  ‘Who are you?’ I demanded.

  He turned his attention back to the periscope. ‘You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘I am Malcolm Trewvey.’

  ‘A middle-aged scrabble obsessive, you mean?’

  ‘I am Tomas Ryal.’

  ‘A non-existent Czech philosopher.’

  ‘I am Martin Thwaite.’

  ‘A fictional character in a Victorian detective story.’

  ‘I am all these people, but those are not my real names.’

  ‘No? What’s your real name, then?’

  ‘James Purdew.’

  ‘That’s a coincidence,’ I said sarcastically.

  ‘I can prove it to you if you like,’ he answered. ‘I’ll tell you things about your life no one else could possibly know . . .’ He went on to list the names of my oldest school friends, the addresses of various houses in which I’ve lived, my mother’s maiden name, my earliest memory, and the details of an embarrassing incident that happened on my eighth birthday.

  By the time he finished speaking, I had become angry. ‘You’ve read my notebooks!’ I shouted.

  ‘That I can’t deny. I was reading them the other day, actually. They’re among our more fascinating diaries.’

  ‘Our?’

  ‘My name is James Purdew and I was born on the 8th of July 1973. I am thirty-five years old; next month I will turn thirty-six.’

  Now I knew why his voice was both intimate to me and strange: it was my own voice, but not my own; it was the voice I only ever heard on tape-recordings, just as his face was the face I only ever saw in photographs, only older than mine: more lined and tanned.

  ‘Impossible,’ I insisted.

  ‘Don’t you remember when you were young, wanting to meet a slightly older version of yourself; someone who could hold your hand and guide you through the maze?’

  I stared at him. Was he mocking me? ‘That was just a child’s fantasy,’ I said. ‘And anyway, it’s April, not June.’

  ‘For you, yes. For me, it is eleven o’clock in the morning on a bright, hot day in June and I am sitting in the summer kitchen of the house in ... ‘-he hesitated, as though weighing his words - ‘the house where I live now.’

  ‘I’m dreaming,’ I said, relieved. ‘This is just a dream.’

  ‘Yes, you are dreaming me. And, at the same time, I am dreaming you, although I am awake. I’m writing a book about you, you see.’

  ‘A book about me?’ I laughed. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Well, it begins with you breaking your ankle on the stairs to Ingrid’s apartment . . .’

  ‘Oh, very funny. How did you break your arm, by the way?’

  ‘I was playing tennis and I slipped. The court was damp.’

  ‘I don’t even play tennis,’ I objected.

  ‘You’ll start later this year.’

  ‘Right. So why do you walk with a limp?’

  For the first time, his self-assurance faded and he looked almost bitter, as though his vanity had been wounded. Then, forcing a smile, he said, ‘Well, actually, that is your fault.’

  ‘My fault? How do you work that out?’

  ‘When the doctor took your cast off, he told you that you’d need physiotherapy. Remember? But you never went . . .’

  ‘No . . . I forgot.’

  ‘ . . . and as you get older, the joint will stiffen. And you will limp, slightly. Most people don’t even notice it.’ There was a silence. He put his eye to the periscope again. ‘What a lovely night,’ he murmured.

  I couldn’t think of anything to say. Or rather I could, but I was afraid the answer to my question would not be what I hoped.

  Unnervingly, he seemed to read my mind. ‘Don’t you want to know what you’ll be doing five years from now?’

  ‘I thought you’d just say you couldn’t tell me.’

  He looked at me with a kind of awkward tenderness. ‘I can’t tell you any details,’ he said, ‘but don’t worry, you’ve already reached the lowest point.’ He put his hand out to touch my shoulder; instinctively I recoiled. He smiled sadly. ‘My advice is to forget about the future: just try to live each moment as it happens.’

  Another silence. Presumably he thought I was digesting this hackneyed slice of wisdom, b
ut in truth I was beginning to realise something: there was a hole in the logic of his story. ‘So do you remember this happening to you when you were thirty?’ I asked.

  A look of surprise flashed briefly across his face before the trademark knowing smile reappeared. ‘Who ever remembers their dreams?’

  ‘True, but you said you’d read my notebooks recently. Wasn’t this mentioned in there?’

  ‘No,’ he replied. ‘It wasn’t.’

  Our eyes met. I looked away. I couldn’t bear his gaze; it was like being outstared by a mirror.

  Oh, and there was another thing. He told me I was in the wrong place, that I had to go up to the attic. But I’d already figured that out for myself.

  James closed the black notebook and picked up the black box. Then he walked upstairs towards his fate.

  I opened the notebook and read what he had written. It was funny how different his memory of the conversation was from mine. Several times he misquoted me, and it was notable that whenever he came out on the losing side of an argument he simply omitted all mention of it. And yet, despite his flaws and those flashes of hostility, I felt sorry for my younger self. He had been through so much, and there was more yet to come.

  By the way, I lied about the description of the dream not being in the notebook: it was and is. But human beings have to believe that the future is unwritten, otherwise they do not feel free. I myself had a dream recently in which I talked to a grey-haired, suicidal version of myself. But it was only a dream.

  Carrying the black box, James climbed the first flight of stairs. The second storey was as perfectly white as the first. He stood on the landing, admiring all that he had achieved. And then, with mounting dread, he turned and looked at the dark arrow pointing up the next flight. Above him, all was grey, stained, filthy; wallpaper peeled and stairs creaked; a cold draught blew from who knew where. Slowly he ascended.

  At the top landing he reached inside his pocket and touched the key that Dr Lanark had given him. Then he opened the door to the attic room. This, he knew, was where Ian Dayton had killed himself. He had thrown himself from the window of this room to the garden below. The only question now was why.

  There was nobody in the room. James walked a few steps further in and listened, but all he could hear was the sound of his own breathing. He surveyed the room’s furniture: a bed, a table, a wardrobe, a bookshelf. Lots of dust, of course, but nothing remarkable or untoward. He walked towards the window, which was open. From there he stared down at the familiar vertiginous view of the sloping roof, the apple tree, the shining grass, and the small stone grave marked with two letters that were, from this height, unreadable.

  James sat down on the floor below the window, with the black box between his legs. It was time: already he could feel the wave moving towards him, the memories returning. He took the key from his pocket and inserted it into the lock. A turn, a click. He opened the lid. Inside he found three diaries, all bound in black vinyl, the years embossed in gold lettering on the front. He picked them up, one by one, and then he put them aside. The truth, he sensed, was not in these diaries, but elsewhere. And there, at the bottom of the black box, he found what he was looking for. He picked up the first sheet of paper and began to read . . .

  Confessions of a Killer

  CHAPTER 6

  Months have passed during the writing of these Confessions, and I am in darkness now . . . it is bleak December, in the year of our Lord 1893, and the memories of that sad affair are ever-more distant to me. Already the details are fading, and yet, as they are all I have, as I am their only hope for posterity, and as nothing remains for me but to confess before I die, I will attempt once more to return to those days. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I will perform a conjuring trick. I will attempt what the theologians and scientists tell us is impossible! I will, without the aid of any gleaming machine, with nothing but this dense mass of tissues, veins, fibres and electricity that is my brain, project myself back in time - and, once there, I will try, as best I can, to finish this story before I myself am finished.

  First, however, I must beg your flagging patience, dear reader, for one moment more before the tale is resumed. It is time for me to reveal my true identity. My name is not Martin Thwaite. Or rather, though that is the name I go by now, it is not the name I had when the events of this story took place. Ivan and Angelina, Sarah and Dr Lanark, they all knew me by a different name. In their eyes, and in the eyes of the law, I am John Price - and it is no longer worth the trouble of concealing this fact. What I am writing, after all, is not a penny-dreadful fiction, but a true and frank confession of real events. You must believe that, reader, even if, in certain places, the cataclysm that I am about to describe must, by its very nature, strain your credulity.

  I landed in Portsmouth on the morning of the third of May and made my way directly to London. By the time I’d deposited my bags in the room I had rented, it was evening, and I was hungry. I walked to The Green Man and ordered broth and ale. After dinner I traversed the familiar streets of Mayfair, the evening sky turning from white to pale pink to star-sequinned turquoise while the façades of the houses on either side grew steadily haughtier and grander. I approached the door of 21 Luff Street and even went so far as to place my hand on the lion-headed knocker; but as I did so a memory flashed into my mind - of Angelina’s face, the day she told me she was a married woman - and my heart began clanging like a tocsin. At the same time, Gerard Ogilvy’s vague, insidious accusations whispered again inside my ears, and I took a step backwards. The mansion reared up above me, alien and impassive. Somewhere inside those brick walls was she: kisser of my lips; stroker of my skin; breaker of my heart. A kind of nauseous apprehension gripped me and, without any further thought or calculation, I retreated across the road to that silent doorway in which I had spent so many nights. The action was both automatic and reassuring. It was with a new calmness - the natural detachment that accompanies routine - that I settled in place and began my watch. Only once I was there did I begin to rationalise my actions to myself: just a precaution, my mind murmured; nothing more sinister than that; all being well, the two of you will be in each other’s arms before the night is over. O, slaughtered hopes! O, rightful fears!

  She emerged, alone, at nine o’clock, and my heart leapt at the sight of her. I could not believe that she was, after all that time out of my sight, apart from my life, beyond my knowledge, still breathing, existing, and still so astonishingly, woundingly lovely. How I wanted to call out to her then, to wave and cross the road, to see her face light up with surprise and love . . . but I did not. Something in me - some part of me, hidden until that moment; a darker, colder, more suspicious me - stilled my arm and silenced my voice. And instead of greeting Angelina, I began to follow her, twenty yards behind, a furtive figure in the shadows; a detective.

  I immediately observed that her route had changed - we were not heading south, but rather northeast - and so had her bearing. Whereas before Angelina had walked with the bizarre, unerring calm of a sleepwalker, now she looked more . . . excited? nervous? awake? happy? More herself is what I thought: as though her personality, on those previous nocturnal walks submerged under layers of hypnotised somnolence, was now alive and present at the very surface. This observation perturbed me, so I forced myself to stop thinking altogether and simply to follow her.

  In the distance she turned right and I hurried to catch up with her. As I turned where she had, I found myself in a courtyard. I have been here before, I said to myself, though as yet I couldn’t remember when or in what circumstances. Even so, the familiarity was powerful, distracting. By now the gibbous moon was shining down and everything looked unreal, like a stage set. I hardly noticed as Angelina stopped outside a door, unlocked it with a key, and entered, closing the door behind her. Numb with apprehension, I walked in her footsteps. It was the same building; it was the same door . . . could this really be a coincidence? My heart was pounding now as I stood outside the entrance to the house in which I h
ad once lived for several weeks. The window on the third floor was lighted, the curtain drawn.

  As I stood in the silent courtyard that night, watching their silhouettes move behind the glowing curtain and then join with darkness as the lamp was extinguished, I felt myself divide in two. On the surface, the young boy trembled, his eyes tearing. How could they do this to him? Surely it could not be true. There must be some other explanation. But beneath him, in the depths, a new me was stirring: a cold Mr Hyde, growing like a malignant tumour from the heart of warm, innocent, foolish Dr Jekyll.

  Hyde had expected such a turn of events all along, and now it had happened, he felt vindicated. Vengeance would be his, he swore. Angelina Vierge and Ivan Dawes would pay for their betrayal.

  For the next hundred hours, I wandered London, shadowing Angelina. I remember very little about those days and nights, except that they were sleepless and that, by their end, I saw everything through a fog of exhaustion. All my memories and emotions from that time are compressed into two images.

  The first image is of the view through the living-room window of 21 Luff Street. I had followed the two of them to her house early one morning, after they had spent the night at his apartment. They went through the front door and I walked around into the back garden. That wide lawn, with its single apple tree, instantly cast a spell of maudlin nostalgia over me, but it was as nothing to the vision that greeted me as I stood at the window of the living room and, hands cupped at either side of my eyes, breath steaming the glass before me, stared into that sore-familiar space, at the Chesterfield settee and the lionskin rug and the grandfather clock and the low Indian table and the dear little fireplace and, close by it, the battered old armchair where I used to sit, where I sat so many times, so many happy mornings just like this one, as Angelina, then mine, made tea in the servantless kitchen, humming some popular tune low under her breath and I could hear the too-slow ticking of the clock’s pendulum and see the low gold sunlight coming through the window, filtered by the branches of the apple tree, illuminating cobwebs and dust in the air, and I sighed and lay back, eyes closed in absolute happiness, remembering the bliss of the night just gone and seeing the future unroll in endless simulations of this perfect moment, just as he, Ivan, was doing now.